There will be those who immediately feel odd about this, somehow feel like Giancarlo Stanton isn’t a Hall of Famer.
But if the New York Yankees slugger continues on his current track, and not even for all that much longer, he’s almost a no-doubt selection.
It all comes down to one magic number: 500.
Stanton has 440 home runs and counting.
There hasn’t been a player who failed to make the Hall of Fame with 500 homers that wasn’t linked to steroid usage.
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Stanton has never had such a link. He has always been one of the biggest, strongest players on every field he has played on, dating back to his days growing up in California.
Giancarlo Stanton is 60 home runs away from the Hall of Fame pic.twitter.com/ASu6ImWoq9
— AT (@YankeeWRLD) August 12, 2025
There are probably a couple reasons Stanton doesn’t feel like a Hall of Famer to his critics.
For one, he broke in with the Marlins, who were miserable a lot more often than they were great.
And two, he came up as Mike Stanton and pulled off the name switch to Giancarlo midway through his career. That can make those early seasons of prodigious power feel like even more of a distant memory.
But this is a guy who has won an MVP Award with a magical 59 homer, 132 RBI season in 2017.
He has a career OPS of .871. He has always had a quality walk rate, and while it’s not obvious now after so many injuries, Stanton was once a quality corner outfielder.
Right now, Stanton is 35. He’ll turn 36 in November.
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He’s been revitalized a bit this season after missing the first half with elbow problems. He’s batting .281 with 11 homers in 41 games.
The biggest risk to Stanton not getting to 500 home runs is injuries. He clearly still has prodigious power, enough to make him a worthy DH for most teams in the league.
Even if he hits only six homers the rest of this season, that’d put him at 446 heading into next year.
From there, he’d need to average 18 home runs over the three seasons to come to get to 500. That’s not hard to fathom, especially if he gets one more healthy, 25-30 homer season in there.
It’s not a sure thing, but all Stanton has to do is hit 60 more home runs. For a guy who has already hit 440, that seems like an achievable feat.
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